Author(s): Martin Mosebach; Alta L. Price (Translator)

Current Affairs

Who were the men in orange? In a carefully choreographed propaganda video, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad men on a Libyan beach, intending to sow terror worldwide. But in the homes of the dead, all but one of them young Coptic migrant workers from Egypt, the video had a very different effect. Acclaimed German novelist and poet Martin Mosebach recounts his travels through Egypt to the village of El-Aour to meet the families of "The Twenty-One" and better understand the faith that shaped their lives. He finds himself welcomed into simple concrete homes through which swallows dart. He is amazed time and again as, surrounded by children and goats, the bereaved replay the cruel propaganda video on an iPad. There is no talk of revenge, only pride in having a martyr in the family, a saint in heaven. The Twenty-One appear on icons crowned like kings, celebrated even as their community grieves. A skeptical Westerner, Mosebach finds himself a stranger in this world where miracles are taken for granted and facing persecution with courage is part of daily life. Book jacket.